DENVER -- More than five years after his death, Boulder photographer William Corey's wish to build a cultural bridge between the United States and Japan is coming true in a way he probably never imagined.

A dozen of Corey's large-format prints of Japanese gardens will officially open to the public inside Denver International Airport on Saturday. The exhibit is designed to celebrate the June 10 launch of United Airlines' long-awaited Denver-to-Tokyo route aboard Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, a debut that was delayed after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded the new lightweight carbon composite aircraft following onboard battery fires.

With the Dreamliner taking to the skies last week for the first time since January, workers on Thursday and Friday mounted Corey's photographs -- images of ancient Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines framed by resplendent autumn leaves and elegantly curved footbridges -- around the north security screening checkpoint and international arrivals door. They will remain there through the end of the year.

"This is our first direct flight to Asia so it's definitely a milestone for the airport," DIA spokeswoman Laura Coale said. "We now have a gateway to Asia."

The airport estimates that nearly 2 million people will pass through the north screening area from now until the end of the year.

"In a day, more people will see these than in any gallery," said Matt Chasansky, director of the Arts and Culture Program at DIA.

And, he said, there probably isn't a better place in which to hang photographs that capture an entirely different mood and tone from what is typically found in an airport.

"It gets to the psyche of what people need when they're standing in these TSA lines," he said, motioning to a seemingly endless line of Memorial Day weekend travelers at the security checkpoint Friday. "These are carefully constructed compositions. William was a technician in the way he was able to master the camera."

Erin Mulrooney, DIA's temporary exhibit curator and coordinator, said she had already been approached by a number of travelers and airport employees asking about Corey's works, which come in sizes 4 feet by 5 feet and 8 feet by 3 feet. She said the photos lend a certain calm to a space typically filled with nervous and irascible fliers.

Corey, who succumbed to cancer at 58 in April 2008, fell in love with photographing Japanese gardens in the 1970s -- around the time he moved from New Jersey to Boulder. For 30 years, he used a bulky, accordion-style Korona Panoramic View camera -- built a century ago from brass, leather and wood and equipped with a Kodak 18-inch wide-field copy lens and 8-by-20-inch film -- to capture the quiet beauty of Japanese gardens, mostly in and around Kyoto.

William Corey

Taking days to familiarize himself with every shadow and angle of a garden and using a single exposure that might last for 30 minutes or more, Corey used patience and a Zen-like focus to get his image. He became so adept at capturing the delicate interplay of color and light in the finely tended gardens that he was the only western photographer invited to photograph the gardens of the Japanese emperor.

His wife of 18 years, Reimi Adachi, who Corey met on a bus in Kyoto in 1990, said she contacted the Consulate-General of Japan in Denver after hearing about United's plans for a direct flight from DIA to Tokyo. That led to calls to the Denver mayor's office and the airport.

"I'm very honored to have this opportunity," said Adachi, who is lending the airport her husband's photographs. "This flight is very important to Colorado. I hope these photographs will energize people to be more curious about Japan."

She was asked how she imagines her late husband would feel were he here to see his beloved photographs on display in such a prominent venue and as part of such a binational event.

"He would be so happy because it's one step closer to realizing his dream of becoming a bridge between the United States and Japan," Adachi said.

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